The Swedish Taxonomy Initiative and DNA Barcoding

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The Swedish Taxonomy Initiative and DNA Barcoding

• Fredrik Ronquist
• Swedish Museum of Natural History

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Tree of life
Green leaves are described species, white leaves
undescribed
Our knowledge is very limited and strongly biased
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All-Taxon Biodiversity Inventories

• We need them
• Biodiversity conservation efforts
• Biodiversity prospecting
• Environmental monitoring, e.g. climate change
• How do we find the funding?
• Private mercenaries (All Species Foundation)
• Large private funds (the Sloan Foundation)
• National pride and threatened species
  conservation
• How do we organize the work?
• Logistic challenges
• Information Technology Challenges

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Swedish Taxonomy Initiative

• Within 20 years, all Swedish multicellular
  species will be scientifically described and
  documented
• All species that can be identified without
  advanced technical methodology (appr. 35,000)
  will be presented in Swedish in a
  well-illustrated Swedish Flora and Fauna
  Encyclopaedia
• There will be keys to all species and the
  distribution, biology, and conservation of each
  species will be summarized
• A collaborative project coordinated by the
  Swedish Species Information Centre (ArtDatabanken)

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Selling Points

• Only 20,000 of our estimated 60,000 Swedish
  species had been judged according to the IUCN
  red-listing criteria, to a large extent thanks to
  amateur naturalists and other non-specialists
• For environmental monitoring and other purposes,
  we need identification guides to all species.
  Amateurs and non-specialists must be able to use
  them.
• For public education purposes, we need
  presentations of all our species.
• Sweden was pushing internationally for
  biodiversity inventories (e.g. Global Taxonomy
  Initiative) while taxonomic and
  faunistic/floristic research on poorly known
  organism groups was dwindling locally and support
  for natural history museums was not adequate.

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The completion of the first national
biodiversity map will undoubtedly be a
significant event. Will the Swedes, inspired by
their Linnaean tradition, be first?
Ronquist and Gärdenfors, TREE, 2002
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Initial Launch (2002-2004)

• 40 M SEK for the Swedish Species Information
  Center to launch the Swedish Species Initiative
• 40 M SEK to support Natural History Museums
  through FORMAS
• 480 M SEK to FORMAS and VR to support
  biodiversity-related research

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Biodiversity Initiative Funds
Well known
Swedish Biological Diversity
Poorly known
Vetenskapsrådet (VR)
Poorly known (2.7 )
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STI from 2005

• Managed solely by the Swedish Species Information
  Center
• 30 M SEK/year for the core activities,
  Biodiversity Encyclopedia, inventories, etc.
• 15 M SEK/year to support taxonomic research on
  poorly known organisms
• 20 M SEK/year to support natural history museums
• 1 300 M SEK over 20 years (appr. 200 M, 140 M
  Euro)

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Research Support

• 62 M SEK (10 M, 7 M euro) reserved (2002-2010)
• In total about 45 scientists, including
• 8 PhD students
• 4.5 Research Fellows (Forskarassistent)
• 9 Guest researcher / Postdoc

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What Organism Groups?

• Insects 31
• Other invertebrates 24
• Fungi, algae, lichens 38
• Angiosperms 6
• Vertebrates 1

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Support to Museums

• Specimen-level data capture, mainly for Nordic
  material, both old and new
• Curation of important collections in poor
  condition
• Hiring of additional curators and taxonomists
  specializing in poorly known groups
• Development of a national database system for
  specimen-level information

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First volume in Nationalnyckeln till Sveriges
flora och fauna (the National Biodiversity
Encyclopedia) was delivered to the Swedish
Parliament on April 25 2005. The volume covers
butterflies.
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BladmossorSköldmossor-blåmossor
Text Tomas Hallingbäck, Niklas Lönnell, Henrik
Weibull m fl Bild Polyanna von Knorring m fl
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Ädelspinnare- tofsspinnare
Text Nils Hydén Bild Torbjörn Östman, Karl Jilg
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Lång- horningar
2007
Text Bengt Ehnström Bild Martin Holmer
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Käkmalar tillsäckspinnare
2007
Text Bengt-Åke Bengtsson, Göran Palmqvist Bild
Roland Johansson
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Small picture-based field guides accompany some
volumes
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Nationalnyckeln Numbers

• About 130 volumes in total
• Largest book project ever in Sweden
• 28,000 copies distributed of the first volume on
  butterflies
• About 7,000 subscribers
• Subscription price 200 SEK (22 ) per volume

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The public appeal of slime molds
Biologists and professional actors star in plays
on poorly known Swedish organism groups
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Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, supports the
Swedish Taxonomy Initiative
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Swedish Malaise Trap Project
Field Part 2003-2006
ca 1650 km
61 traps at 44 localities mounted in June 2003
11 traps at 8 localities mounted winter
2004/2005
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Njakajaureleden, Abisko
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Nuolja, Abisko
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Ungfars mosse, Tyresta
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Hunga Södergård, Trosa
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Results

• 25,000 Swedish insect species known before the
  project started
• 40 million specimens have been collected during 3
  years
• About 20 of the material has been sorted to
  major groups about 5 has been identified to
  species
• In the identified material, we have found about
  1,000 new species records for Sweden, half of
  which are new to science

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Aftonbladet October 11, 2006

• More than 100 articles in local and national
  newspapers
• More than 20 reports on national TV
• More than 100 reports on local and national radio

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DNA barcoding!

• Fresh material of a large portion of the Swedish
  fauna and flora
• Access to a lot of taxonomic expertise
• Cheaper to do it now and than any time in the
  near future

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BUT

• Effective barcoding needs traditional taxonomic
  work no cost saving
• Barcoding powerful but not universal
  identification aid
• When not needed for other reasons, DNA barcoding
  is an extra cost that can jeopardize the
  completion of the inventory
• Most monitoring done by amateur naturalists
  unlikely to have access to DNA barcoding
  equipment, may not even want it

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SO

• DO barcode when molecular sequencing is needed
  for completion of the inventory
• DO NOT barcode in other cases (e.g., well known
  groups like butterflies, beetles, vertebrates,
  angiosperms, etc)
• unless funded from other sources than the STI

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All opinions expressed in this talk are my own
and are not to be interpreted as the official
position of the Swedish Taxonomy Initiative or
the Swedish Museum of Natural History.